Rosaiah exempted from personal appearance in Hyderabad court

Hyderabad, June 29 (IANS) In a major breather for Tamil Nadu Governor K.Rosaiah, the Andhra Pradesh High Court Friday exempted him from personally appearing in a city court in a land allotment case.

The high court, on a petition filed by Rosaiah, stayed the summons issued by a lower court in a case related to de-notification of government land when he was chief minister of Andhra Pradesh.

The Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) court June 18 had directed Rosaiah to appear before it Aug 2.

Rosaiah’s government July 15, 2010 had issued an order de-notifying 9.14 acres of prime land worth Rs.300 crore at Ameerpet in Hyderabad in favour of some private parties for building a commercial complex.

Rosaiah is among the 13 accused in the case, which was filed by Mohan Lal, an advocate. The petitioner alleged that the action of the chief minister in de-notifying the land belonging to the Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority (HMDA) in favour of some private parties caused a loss of Rs.200 crore to the state exchequer.

On the direction of the court, the ACB after a preliminary investigation, submitted the report in March 2011. The report sought to give a clean chit to Rosaiah on the ground that there was no evidence against him. It also requested the court to close the case.

While rejecting the report, the court examined the witnesses including three senior IAS officers - C.V.S.K. Sarma, who was the then principal secretary to the chief minister, T.S. Appa Rao, then principal secretary of department of municipal administration and urban development and B.P. Acharya, then Commissioner of HMDA. All three recorded their statements. Sarma identified the then chief minister’s signature on the concerned file.

80-year-old Rosaiah was chief minister from Sep 3, 2009 to Nov 24, 2010. He was appointed governor of Tamil Nadu in August 2011.